The Good Doctor
by MAlyssaConnor
Summary: After Ward in shot and left to die in Puerto Rico, he manages to escape only to be captured half-dead by HYDRA. SHIELD is aware but do nothing. Tortured for weeks, they bury him alive. A woman, who is also on the run from HYDRA, stumbles upon him. With his memory violently taken away from him, Ward is left to rediscover who he is. Hurt/Comfort; Romance; Stockholm Syndrome
1. Chapter 1

As Katherine twisted her way among the tables, a soft breeze from the Atlantic swept through her hair. Carrying three plates in her left hand and another in her right, she wore light blue shorts that bared her long, tan legs, and a white t-shirt that read in cursive red letters: _Whitmore's_.

She brought the plates to four men wearing polo shirts. The one closest to her caught her eye and smiled. Though he tried to act as though he was just a friendly guy, she knew he was watching her as she walked away. After retrieving a pitcher of sweet tea, she refilled their glasses before returning to the waitress station.

She stole a glance at the view. It was mid-July, the temperature hovering a little too high for decent comfort, blue skies stretching out to the horizon.

A dozen seagulls perched on the railing, waiting to dart beneath the tables if someone dropped a scrap of food. Jason Whitmore, the owner, hated them. He was already patrolling the railing twice a day with a wooden plunger, trying to scare them off.

Katherine was more concerned with where the plunger's been than she was about the seagulls.

She started another pot of sweet tea, wiping down the station. From a former life, the habit of a sterile work station had stuck with Katherine. A moment later, she felt someone tap on her shoulder. She turned to see Jason's daughter, Julia. She was a pretty, ponytailed nineteen year old working part-time as the restaurant's hostess.

"Caroline, I booked you another table," she said with a smile.

Katherine scanned her tables, running the rhythm in her head. She nodded and smiled back. "Alrighty."

Julia walked down the stairs. Caroline….Caroline Bergius. It's been a month since she's adopted the alias. She was still adjusting to it, but she was getting better. She answered to the name automatically and didn't hesitate when recalling it. That's a perk of working as a waitress, having to constantly introduce yourself.

When Jason hired her, telling 'Caroline' she could work the following Monday, it took everything she had not to cry in front of him. She waited until she was walking home to the small apartment she started renting above the general store to breakdown. At the time, she was broke and hadn't eaten in two days.

From nearby tables, Katherine could hear snippets of conversations – people talking about friends, family, the weather, and fishing. At a table in the corner, she saw two people close their menus. She hustled over and took the order, but didn't linger at the table trying to make small talk. She wasn't good at small talk, but she was efficient and polite and none of her customers complained.

She refilled waters and sweet teas and headed to the kitchen. Kyle, one of the cooks, winked at her like he always did. He was blond and lanky, perhaps a year of two younger than Katherine. He still lived with his parents.

Since working at Whitmore's, Kyle's taken a shine to Katherine. Two days ago, he asked her out. Katherine politely declined, saying she didn't want to date anyone she worked with. Whenever she went to work she got the feeling he would try again. She hoped her instincts were wrong.

"Can I drive you home later?" Kyle offered to drive her at least twice a week.

"Thank you, but no. I don't live that far."

"It's no problem," he persisted. "I'd be happy to."

"Walking is good for me."

Katherine handed him her ticket and Kyle pinned it up on the wheel. He located one of her orders. She carried the order back to her section and dropped it off the table.

Whitmore's was a local institution, a restaurant that had been in business for over thirty years. In the short time she'd been working there, she'd come to recognize the regulars. As she crossed the restaurant floor, her eyes traveled over them to the people she hadn't seen before. Couples flirting, other couples ignoring each other. Families.

No one seemed out of place and no one had come around asking for her. There were still times when her hands began to shake, and even now she slept with the light on.

It has been four months since S.H.I.E.L.D fell and HYDRA made their presence known. For four months Katherine Lucas has been on the run. For a while, she had someone. They fought for each other, against the world for each other. And not long after that she was alone. She was determined to stay that way. S.H.I.E.L.D was gone now. HYDRA hunted her. She had no choice but to be alone.

Her hair was shorter now, and chestnut brown. She dyed it not long after coming to town in the filthy sink of a gas station bathroom. She no longer wore make-up, not that she wore much before. Her face would pick up some color, hopefully not too much. She reminded herself to buy sunscreen, but after paying rent and utilities on the apartment above the general store, there wasn't much left for luxuries. Even sunscreen was a stretch.

Whitmore's was a good job and she was beyond ecstatic to have it, but the food was inexpensive, which meant the tips weren't the best. On her steady diet of rice and beans, pasta and oatmeal, she'd lost weight in the past four months. She could feel her ribs beneath her shirt, and until a few weeks ago, she'd had dark circles under her eyes.

Katherine started another pot of coffee as another waitress, the gossip queen of Whitmore's, Melony, came over to her. "I heard Kyle ask you out," she purred. "But, again, you said no."

"I don't like to date people I work with." Katherine pretended to be absorbed in organizing the silverware trays.

"We could double-date," Melony blurted, ignoring Katherine's response. "He and Steve go fishing together _all_ the time."

Katherine wondered if Kyle put Melony put her up to it or if it was Melony's idea. In the evenings after the restaurant closed, most of the staff stayed around to visit over beers. Aside from Katherine, most everyone working at the restaurant had been there for years.

"I don't date anyone I work with," Katherine repeated herself.

"Why not?"

"Bad experience once….dating a guy from work, I mean. Since then, it's been, like, a rule for me."

And by bad experience, Katherine meant the last couple she double-dated with ended up being HYDRA Nazis and tried to kill her. One of them actually succeeded in part.

Melony rolled her eyes before hurrying off to one of her tables. Katherine dropped off two checks and cleared empty plates. She kept busy, as she always did, trying to be efficient and invisible. She kept her head down and made sure the waitress station was spotless. It made the day go by faster.

Katherine worked both the lunch and dinner shift. As day shifted to night, she loved to watch the sky turning from blue to gray to orange and yellow at the edge of the world. She never got this view in her D.C. operating room. At sunset, the water sparkled and sailboats heeled in the breeze. The needles on the pine trees shimmered. As soon as the sun dropped below the horizon, Jason turned up the propane gas heaters and the coils began to glow like pumpkins.

Katherine's face had gotten slightly sunburned, and the waves of radiant heat made her skin sting.

The dinner rush lasted until nine. When it began to clear out, Katherine cleaned and closed up the wait station. She helped the busboys carry plates to the dishwasher while her final tables finished up. At one of them was a young couple and she'd seen the rings on their fingers as they held hands across the table. They were attractive and happy, and she felt a sense of déjà vu. She had been like them once, but it seemed like a lifetime ago even though it was only months. She was a different person now.

Katherine turned away from the blissful couple, wishing she could erase her memories of that night and never have these feelings again.

James was dead. His killer was someone they reached out to for help, someone they counted as a friend. The price of going underground meant not recognizing who was S.H.I. . and who was HYDRA. The price was something she was not prepared to pay.


	2. Chapter 2

At ten o'clock, the lot of the general store was nearly empty. It was just before closing time as HYDRA Agent Daniel Quick walked around to the front of the store, squinting at the light coming through the front door. He pushed the door open and heard a bell jingle.

At the register was a man in an apron. He was wearing a white apron, the name BILL stenciled on the right.

Agent Quick walked past the register. "I ran out of gas up the road."

"Gas cans are along the far wall," Bill answered without looking up.

He tried not to draw attention to himself but knew the man was watching. The Glock was in his waistband and all Bill had to do was mind his own business. At the far wall, Agent Quick saw three five-gallon plastic cans and reached for two of them. He brought them to the register and put money on the counter.

"I'll pay after I fill them up," he said.

Outside, he pumped gas into the can, watching the numbers roll past. He filled the second and went back inside. Bill was staring at him, hesitating to make change.

"That's a lot of gas to carry."

Agent Quick blinked. "Can I buy the gas or not?"

After a moment, Bill took the money and made change. Agent Quick had left the cans near the gas pumps and went to pick them up. It was like lifting cans of lead. He strained, his stomach lurching, pulsating pain between his ears.

He had a run in with S.H.I.E.L.D a day or two before picking up on Doctor Katherine Lucas' trail yesterday. Some mouse working for Coulson shot him in the gut. Doctors did their work and he was back on his feet, but he wasn't 100% yet.

Agent Quick shook the pain out of his head. He started up the road, leaving behind the lights of the store. In the darkness, he set the cans down in the tall grass just off the road. After that, he circled back behind the store. He waited for Bill to close up, waited for the lights to go out. Waiting for Doctor Lucas to fall asleep upstairs.

He watched the florescent lights above the gas pumps flicker off. Lights in the store went out next. From his hidden vantage point, he watched Bill lock the door. He tugged on it, making sure it was secure, before turning away. He walked to a brown pickup truck parked on the far side of the gravel lot and got in.

The engine started with a whine and squeak. A loose fan belt. Bill revved the engine, turned on the headlights, and then put the truck in gear. He turned onto the main road, heading toward downtown.

Agent Quick waited five minutes to make sure Bill wouldn't turn around and come back. The road in front of the store was quiet now, no cars or trucks coming from either direction. He jogged over to the bushes her he hid the cans. He checked the road again before carrying one of them to the back of the store. He did the same with the second can, setting them next to a couple of metal garbage cans filled with rotting food.

The stench was overwhelming.

Upstairs, the TV continued to bathe one of the windows in blue light. There were no other lights. Now, he thought. It was time. When he reached for the gas cans, he saw four of them. He closed one eye and it was back to two. He stumbled as he took a step and jerked forward, off balance, swaying as he tried to grab the corner of the wall to keep from falling. He missed and fell, landing hard. His head hit the gravel.

He saw sparks and stars, felt shooting pains. It was hard to breathe. Tried to stand up and fell again. He rolled over onto his back, staring up at the stars.

Something was wrong.

He squeezed his eyes shut, but the spinning got worse. He rolled to his side and vomited onto the gravel. He reached out blindly for the garbage can. He grabbed the lid and tried to use it for balance, but he pulled too hard. The lid clattered off and a bag of garbage spilled out, making an unholy racket.

Agent Quick swore he'd kill the mouse that shot him if this wound cost him a mission. HYDRA wasn't like S.H.I.E.L.D; one and done. If the bullet didn't kill him, Morse or Bakshi would. He had to bring the doctor in. His compliance would be rewarded.

Agent Quick was finally able to struggle to his feet and stay upright. He concentrated on catching his breath, in and out….in and out. He spotted the cans of gas and stepped towards them. He almost fell again. But he didn't.

He lifted a can, then staggered toward the stairs at the back of the house. He reached out for the railing. He lugged the can of gas up the stairs, towards the door. He reached the landing at the top and bent over to remove the cap. His head rushed with blood, making him swoon gently.

Once open, he picked up the can and doused the landing. He splashed the contents against the door. With every heave, the can got lighter, gas spilling out in arcs, drenching the wall. He splashed left and right, tying to coat either side of the building. He started back down the stairs, splashing left and right. The fumes made him sick but he kept going.

There wasn't much gas left in the can when he reached the bottom and he rested at the ground level. He was breathing hard and the fumes were making him feel sick again but he began moving again, with purpose now. Determination. All S.H.I.E.L.D operators have it drilled into them the first day at the Academy.

He tossed the empty can aside and reached for the other. He couldn't douse the upper reaches of the walls, but he did what he could. He splashed one side and then circles around the back to the other side. Above him, the window still slickered with the light from the television but all was quiet.

He drained the can on the other side of the building and had nothing left for the front. He scanned the road; no cars were coming from wither direction. Agent Quick almost had Doctor Lucas back in Philadelphia, back when she was a gas station attendant calling herself Erin. Now she pretended to be a waitress named Caroline.

Agent Quick stood in front of the store, thinking about the windows. Maybe they were alarmed and maybe not. He didn't care. He needed lighter fluid, motor oil, turpentine, anything flammable. But once he broke the window, he wouldn't have much time.

He shattered the window with his elbow but heard no alarm. He knocked out the remaining shards of glass with his elbow. Chunk by chunk, the window came apart in sections. The opening was big enough for him to climb in through.

The coolers along the back wall were still illuminated and he walked the aisles, wondering idly if Cheerios and Twinkies would burn. He located the charcoal and the lighter fluid – only two cans. That wasn't enough. He blinked, looking around for something else. He spotted the grill in the rear of the store.

Natural gas. Propane.

He approached the grill area, lifting the divider, and stood facing the grill itself. He turned on the burner and then another. There had to be a valve somewhere, but he didn't know where to find it. He didn't have enough time.

Bill's apron hung on a rack and he tossed it on the flame. He opened the can of lighter fluid he was holding and sprayed it on the walls of the grill. He hopped up onto the counter and squirted some lighter fluid on the ceiling. He ran a trail of fluid along the front of the store, noticing that the apron had begun to burn in earnest.

He emptied the can and tossed it aside. Opening the second can, he squired more fluid at the ceiling. He went to the register and searched for a lighter and found them in a plastic container. He squirted fluid on the register and behind the counter. That can was empty now, too.

He climbed back out the window he came through, stepping on broken glass and heard it crackle and pop. Standing by the side of the house, he flicked the lighter and held it against the gas-soaked wall. He watched as the wood caught fire. At the back of the house, he touched the lighter's flame to the stairs and the flames rose quickly, shooting up to the door and spreading to the roof. Next came the far side.

Fire blossomed everywhere, the exterior rippling with flame. He stood back to watch the fire start to consume the building. In the glowing orange light, he looked like a monster.


	3. Chapter 3

It was coming up on ten o'clock.

Katherine Lucas laid back on the couch and started watching a show in the Discovery Channel, something about volcanoes. The only stations the old TV got were educational and the local station. She noticed a glare on the screen and stretched to turn off the lamp on the end table, darkening the small, sparse living room. She leaned back again.

Better.

She watched for a few minutes, barely aware that every time she blinked, her eyes stayed closed a fraction longer. Her breath slowed and she began to melt into the uncomfortable cushion of the couch. Images began to float through her mind, disjointed thoughts of a happier time.

She was drifting now, relaxing and remembering. The images beginning to blue, the sound of the television fading. The room grew dark, quiet. She drifted further, her mind flashing back again and again to James.

Katherine flinched at the sound of something crashing. She was lost in her dream, and it took a moment for her eyes to flutter open. Groggy, she listened but wasn't sure why. She wasn't sure whether she'd dreamed the sound or not.

There was nothing.

She leaned back, giving way to sleep again.

The sound was loud, like the shattering of glass, and it seemed to signal change. The dream's colors began to fade, the sentimental scene dissolving to black as if the world was slowly being erased.

Katherine was surrounded by impenetrable darkness, broken only by an odd flickering at the periphery of her vision, and the sound of someone talking.

 _Can you smell it?_

Katherine sniffed, still lost in her dreamy haze. Her eyes fluttered open, stinging for some reason as she tried to clear her sight. The television was still on and she realized she must have fallen asleep.

Katherine took a deep breath as she pushed herself to a sitting position and immediately started coughing. It took only an instant to realize that the room was filled with smoke. She bolted off the couch.

Smoke meant fire. She could see the flames outside the window, dancing and twisting orange. The door was on fire, smoke billowing from the kitchen in the thick clouds. She heard roaring, a sound like a train, heard cracks and pops and splintering.

She ran toward the hallway, panicked at the sight of heavy smoke billowing from the rooms. It was an impenetrable wall of smoke, but she rushed forward nonetheless. She could feel an enormous heat billowing behind her.

The roaring of the fire was so loud, she could barely her the sound of her own voice when she yelled as flames licked at her. She was an orange glow, barely visible through the smoke, where the entrance to the hallway was. The wall crawled with fire, flames on the ceiling, moving towards her.

She didn't have time to think, only react. She pushed on down the hallway to the master bedroom. The smoke was less thick there. She rushed into the room, flicking on the light. It still worked. Her bed stood against one wall, a chest of empty drawers against another. Straight ahead was a rocking chair and windows, thankfully untouched as yet by the fire. She slammed the door behind her.

Racked by coughing spasms, she stumbled forward. Frantically, she tore at the old-fashioned window lock and tried to heave the heavy pane up. It wouldn't budge. Peering closer, Katherine realized that the frame had been painted shut, probably years ago. She didn't know what to do.

She let terror wash over her, clearing her mind. She needed to focus. She looked around her barely furnished room for something to break the window. The rocking chair.

It was heavy, but somehow she lifted it above her shoulder and heaved it at the window with all her might. It cracked but didn't break. She tried again, sobbing through a last burst of adrenaline and fear. This time the rocking chair went flying out, crashing onto the overhang below.

There was a loud splintering sound behind her as part of the wall burst into flame, tendrils licking the ceiling. Katherine turned in panic. She heard a roar above her as the ceiling started to give way.

Whirling around, she pushed through the window. Glass shards ripped at her forearms that covered her face. She seemed to hang in the air for an eternity. She hit the overhang on her back with a thunderous bang. It wasn't far, maybe four or five feet, but the impact left her breathless before pain rolled over her in waves.

She blinked, trying not to pass out, sure she'd broken her back. But she hadn't; she moved one leg, then the other. She shook her head to clear her vision.

Above her, tongues of flame began to flare from the broken bedroom window. Flames were everywhere now, all over the house, and she knew she had only seconds to live unless she somehow summoned the strength to move.

The ground was perhaps a ten-foot drop from the overhang, but she had to risk it. She was running out of time. She scooted to the edge. The overhang was shaking now, fire climbing up both support columns.

She fell into another coughing spasm. She knew she had to move. She grabbed the edge of the overhang and swung one leg off, then the other. She dangled for only an instant before her grip weakened.

She hit the ground and felt her knees buckle before she rolled to a stop in front of the store entrance. Her legs screamed with pain, but she had to get to safety. She got to her knees and began to drag herself away.

The fire was dancing, leaping, spurting toward the sky. Nearby trees caught fire, their upper branches sparking like firecrackers. There was a sharp clap, loud enough to make her ears ring. She chanced a peek over her shoulder, just in time to see the walls of the building collapse inward. Then there was a deafening sound of an explosion, and Katherine was knocked over in the scorching blast of air.

By the time she caught her breath and turned to look, the store and her new life was nothing but a gigantic cone of fire.

But she made it.

It was only when a shadow appeared before her that she realized she was wrong. It was him, looming over her, a gun at his side.

He was a HYDRA agent that worked inside S.H.I.E.L.D. and helped in its downfall. He was one of the men that has been hunting her. He was their friend. He was one of the men that helped killed James.

Agent Daniel Quick.


	4. Chapter 4

Katherine had trouble processing what she was seeing.

"Hello, Doctor Lucas," Agent Quick rasped.

She recognized the voice, even with his face partly in shadow. The inferno blazed behind him and his face was covered in soot. In his hand the Glock shone, like it had been dipped in a barrel of oil.

He raised the gun, pointing it at her. "There are some people who would like to speak with you."

Katherine got to her feet. Agent Quick's eyes were feral, his movements jerky. He took a step towards her. He was ready to kill her if she did not comply, Katherine realized. Something was wrong, though. She needed to find it and exploit it. Fast.

"Daniel…please." She took a step forward, pleading. She didn't show him that she was scared. She knew he wanted to pull the trigger. "Don't hurt me."

"Funny," he cocked his gun. "James asked the same thing."

Suddenly, Katherine lunged forward, pushing the gun away. It fired, the sound like a vicious slap, but she kept moving forward, clinging to his wrist and not letting go. She started screaming.

He tried to free his arm. Katherine lowered her mouth and bit down as hard as she could and Agent Quick let out a furious cry. Trying to pull the arm free, he slammed his other fist into her temple. Instantly, she saw flashes of white light. She bit down again, finding his thumb this time, and he screamed, letting go of the gun. It clattered to the ground and he punched her again, catching her on her cheekbone, knocking her to the ground.

He kicked her in the back and she arched with pain. But she kept moving, in panic now, fueled by the certainty that he meant to kill her. He would do his best to deliver her alive to HYDRA, but if it came down to it, she was just another loose end.

She rose to all fours and started crawling. He kicked her several times in the chest and abdomen. She felt something snap. A rib. She nearly collapsed on the gravel, all air escaping her. She began to move faster, gaining speed. Finally, she surged to her feet.

She ran as fast as she could. She forced herself forward, but she felt his body slam into her from behind. She lay breathless on the ground again. He grabbed her by the hair and hit her again. And again. And again. Her eye was swelling and his ring created a gash on her cheekbone, if not fracturing it. Her nose bled into her mouth. For a moment, she thought she would choke on her own blood.

He seized her arm and twisted it, trying to work it behind her back. He was off balance from whatever injuries he already had. She was slippery enough from sweat, soot, and blood to turn on her back. Reaching up, she clawed at his eyes, catching one in the corner and tearing it, hard.

Fighting for her life, adrenaline flooding her limbs. Fighting now for all the times that she hadn't. James was the fighter. But James was dead now. She wasn't planning on joining him anytime soon.

Agent Quick snatched at her fingers, tottering off balance, and she used the opportunity to wiggle away. She felt him clawing at her legs, but his grip wasn't good enough and she pulled one leg free. Pulling her knee up toward her chin, she kicked him with all her force, stunning him as she connected with his chin. She did it again, watching this time as he toppled sideways, one hand grabbing his surely broken nose and the other grabbing at nothing.

Katherine scrambled to her feet, clutching her ribs as she started running again. Agent Quick happened to be just as quick as his name implied. A few feet away, she saw the gun and lunged for it. He also saw the gun the same instant she did and dove for it. He reached for it, snatching it up and pointing it at her. He was pissed. Before, it was business. Now it was slightly more personal.

He grabbed her by the hair and put the gun to her head as he began dragging her across the lot.

"Wrong call, Doctor."

Behind the store, beneath a tree, she saw his car with a Massachusetts plate. The heat of the fire scorched her face, singeing the hair on her arms. Agent Quick was raging at her, his voice raw.

"All you had to do was say 'yes', Doctor. One word! And all this _pain_ , all this _suffering_ , all the _dead_. None of that would have happened. All of it is on you."

In the distance, she could faintly make out sirens, but they seemed so far away. When they reached the car, she tried to fight again but Agent Quick slammed her already damaged face onto the roof of the car. She almost passed out. He opened the trunk of the car and tried to force her in. Somehow she turned and managed to drive her knee into his groin. She heard him gasp and felt his grip loosen momentarily.

She pushed blindly, tearing out of his grasp, and started running for her life. She knew the bullet was coming, that she was going to die.

Agent Quick was having trouble breathing. By all accounts, Doctor Lucas should have been an easy takedown. Her man, James, was the fighter. He started staggering after her, raising the gun, aiming, but….there were two of her. And they were both running.

He pulled the trigger.

Katherine gasped as she heard the shot, waiting for the flash of pain, but it didn't come. She kept running and suddenly it occurred to her that he'd missed. She veered left and then right, still in the lot, desperate for some kind of shelter. But there was nothing.

Agent Quick staggered after her, his hands slippery with blood, his and the doctor's, slipping on the trigger. She was getting farther away, moving from side to side, and he couldn't keep her in sight. She was trying to get away. He couldn't let her. She was his mission and he would not fail.

Katherine saw the headlights of a car on the road, moving as fast as a race car. She wanted to get to the road, to flag the car down, but she knew she wouldn't reach the road in time. Surprising her, the car suddenly began to slow, and all at once, bowled into the lot.

It roared past her, towards Agent Quick.

The sirens were getting closer now. People were coming and she felt a surge of hope.

Agent Quick saw the car coming and raised the gun. He began firing, but the car kept coming towards him. As it came closer, he landed two shots into the driver's side of the windshield. He leapt out of the way as the car swerved past him. He didn't jump in time. It clipped his hand, breaking bones and knocking the gun somewhere into the darkness. He screamed in agony, instinctively cradling his crippled hand.

The car barreled past Agent Quick, past the burning wreckage of the store, crashing headlong into the storage shed and spitting gravel in its wake. There were sirens in the distance. He wanted to chase Doctor Lucas, but he would be arrested if he stayed. HYDRA would send someone to kill him while in jail. Fear and self-preservation took over. He began to limp and jog to his car, knowing that he had to get out of there.

How did it all go so wrong?

Katherine watched Agent Quick tear out of the lot, gravel spinning, onto the main road. Turning around, she saw the car was half buried in the storage shed, its engine spewing exhaust. She staggered towards it, half conscious. She made a mental list of her considerable injuries: right eye swollen shut, right cheek bones fractured, broken nose, chipped teeth, broken ribs, smoke inhalation, sprained ankle, numerous cuts and bruises.

For now she was alive.

Whether she continued to live or not depended on what she did in the next critical moments.

The fire cast its flickering light on the rear of the car and she felt panic rising inside her. If the driver were alive, she would stabilize him until the paramedics came. If he was dead….what would she do?

She was closing in on the car when her foot hit something hard, making her stumble even more. Spotting the gun she'd tripped on, she picked it up and started toward the car again. She tried the driver's door of the car, but it was blocked by debris on either side. She reached in through the shattered window and took the driver's pulse. He was dead.

She closed her eyes and sighed. "Shit."

She took a moment to pity him, punish herself for his death, but that was all she could afford. She grasped the collar of his shirt on either side and pulled. It took her several tried to pull him halfway out the window. One more tug and gravity would do the rest.

Once the dead driver was out, she painfully climbed in through the window. She cried out in agony, slamming her hand on the steering wheel as she doubled over.

"Fuck!" She sobbed. "Fuck!"

The sirens were getting closer. Minutes ago, they were a beacon of hope and salvation. Now, they brought the promise of capture. She would not be safe with them. HYDRA….S.H.I.E.L.D….whoever was running things now, they would find her again.

She needed to run. She slammed the car into reverse and revved the engine, listening to the wheels spinning but the car was going nowhere. Her mind raced frantically. She lifted her foot off the gas, engaged the four-wheel drive, and tried again. This time the car began to move, the side mirrors ripping off, debris scraping and bending its body. The car came free with a final lurch.

She turned the car around and accelerated hard, gaining the road as the fire trucks pulled in.


	5. Chapter 5

There was blood.

There was pain.

Both going on for an eternity. Thousands of cuts, burns, and their taunting laughter let him know he was still alive. His mind swam in disbelief and self-loathing that he had allowed himself to become this helpless. After his capture, he was paralyzed by a drug they gave him. He could not fight back, but he could undoubtedly feel. Even his vocal cords were useless. He couldn't scream if he had wanted to.

His torture continued, his butchers unrelenting.

He knew he was alone in this. His mind clouded with endless pain, his memory was fading. The more he tried to hold on, grasp the images and never let go, the faster they slipped away. Curious enough the sensation of betrayal stayed with him. His betrayal or the betrayal of another, he didn't know, couldn't remember. He did know that the betrayal was the cause of his capture.

He faintly heard the crack of a gunshot in the back of his mind….The sound came from someone he knew, someone close to him, someone he cared about. Was _that_ person the one who did this to him? Or did he shoot _them_?

His mind was like an iron veil, drawn between him and his memory. How had they captured him? Who betrayed him?

The only memories the veil did not take from him was the pain. Terrible, endless pain. He wanted to scream, fill his lungs and yell for all that he has lost, when his mind shattered in countless fragments.

He was left alone to the butchers, men who wielded knives and torches with delight.

He was left vulnerable to the men tearing his body apart. He heard their taunts, their questions; felt their rage when he refused to acknowledge them or the pain he felt.

He welcomed death.

He wanted to die.

How long had he been there? Time no longer mattered.

They never let him sleep. He was tortured around the clock without pause; men in teams of two took shifts to ensure this. If he ever mercifully slipped into darkness, he was violently brought back by simulated drowning. One would hold a cloth over his nose and mouth while the other poured a bucket of water over the cloth.

His desolate black eyes, cold as ice, never left their faces. He never blinked as he held their gaze. His eyes were that of a predator, waiting, watching. The promise of retaliation burned bright.

It drove him mad that the butchers refused to kill him. One swift blow and that would be it.

When he naively thought his butchers were finished with him, that they would end his suffering and finally give him death, he discovered what Hell truly was. Horrible sneers on the faces above him. A rusted pipe, dull and blunted at the end, poised steady on his chest. The metal was cool on his fevered skin.

A beat of time.

A second.

It would all be over.

All would end.

Yet, all the pain he had endured up to this point had not prepared him for what had come. He agonizingly felt the pipe punch through his skin. A hammer fell hard on the other end of the pipe, driving it further into Grant's chest.

The pain was beyond his imagination. He felt every blow, watched as blood shot from his chest.

He felt his life draining away from him. He was certain he would die soon. He had begged for death but it was never delivered.

His eyes found the butchers'. They were covered in his blood, red sprays across their black aproned chests and their white surgical masked faces. Something in his eyes caused one of them to curse. They quickly covered his eyes with cloth.

He heard one of them put the hammer down.

"Don't want you going too soon," another said.

He felt a sharp stick in his arm and a shortly after, a burning liquid pass through his veins. As he slowly felt his heart beat faster, they zip-tied two small bags to his arm, underneath the needle. He heard the rushing of blood in his ears, felt more liquid pool around and underneath him.

He felt hands in his hair as his head was lifted up off the metal slab and a mask was put over his face. He took a breath and clean, cold air greeted him. A small, metal canister was zip-tied to his leg.

He would continue to suffer a slow death even after they had abandoned him.

He heard their cackling laughter as they connected metal walls around him, boxing him in, building him a metal coffin. He heard the sound of metal scraping the ground and felt cool dirt thrown onto him. Layer by layer, it slowly engulfed him. He prayed an inevitable infection killed him before the strange liquid and oxygen ran out.

He heard himself scream in agony with the weight of the dirt violently impacting his body, but the sounds were only in his mind, locked away and echoing.

With each shovelful, silence surrounded him.

They buried him alive.

Like instinct, he knew he had once felt at home in the darkness. Yet now, in his tortured state, it was his enemy. He was locked away in his pain and silence, just like he was locked away in his mind. Alone in suffocating silence. Before, it was his choice to be in the dark. Now, he was a prisoner of it. It brought him no comfort.

Time passed and lost all meaning.

Hunger added to his pain. Hunger and pain became his entire world. Nothing else existed for him anymore. His ability to sleep came with time. The return of this luxury meant little.

He remembered nothing. This was his life: sleep; awake in agony, suffocating on fear; pass out in hunger. Repeat.

In the excruciating moments between sleep, he would whisper his own name over and over again –

 _Grant Ward._

 _Grant Ward._

 _Grant Ward._

He had a name… _He was in the dark._

He was real… _He was in Hell._

He was alive… _He would die._

Time passed from weeks, to months, to years in his mind. A second outside his prison lasted an eternity. There was no hope. There was no peace. There was no way out.

Time continued to pass. It meant nothing to him in his limited world.

Dreams began to invade his mind. A woman with dark hair. He saw no face, no past. Only knowing she was out there. Alive. _Free_.

He imagined her hair, soft and vibrant. He wanted to touch it. To sink his fingers in it. To fell the thickness. To wrap it around her neck. The strange her with it. To bury his face in it.

They paralysis slowly wore off his fingers and toes. His wrists were handcuffed in front of him and left little room to maneuver. He slowly stretched out the tips of his fingers and discovered a wooden lid to his makeshift coffin. He had nowhere near enough strength to push the lid off, so he set about the mind numbing task of clawing his way out. He scratched with his nail what he could in front of him. One after the other, they cracked, bled, and broke in his vain attempt to get out, but it was all he had left.

He would die. He would not die in dark, buried in a hole in the wall.

Anger found its way into his small world. Hatred, even. In the place of the man, a monster grew. Deadly and dangerous, it grew and thrived off his pain. His pain became will power. He would travel to the very gates of Hell to get revenge. It would be nothing compared to his suffering now.

What had he done to deserve this?

The thought of the woman filled his mind, momentarily pushing aside his pain. He would find her. He would have his revenge.

He let go of his sanity.


	6. Chapter 6

They had found her again in Guatemala.

She was staying in a shack, clothing and furniture overturned and scattered all over the place. There had either been a fight, or someone angry was looking for something. She barely had time to run around the shack picking up torn clothing, grabbing items along the way.

And Katherine Lucas was on the run again. She has been more careful since Whitmore's. Through various legal and illegal means, she managed to squirrel away cash and IDs in locations all over North and South America. She was entirely mobile since landing in Venezuela: truck, four-wheel-drive, that had a camper shell that she could live in if necessary. She kept the immediate essentials light and packed; she would be able to grab and go at a moment's notice.

Where to this time? Where would she be able to lose them? She was driving fast, racing through the streets of the streets of Caracas trying to get to the Venezuelan Coastal Range. There was an access road off the Avenida Boyacá. James knew of an old SSR cabin near Pico Naiguatá that the road would lead to. The dense foliage offered cover from satellites or overhead scouting.

It has been seven months since S.H.I.E.L.D fell and she went on the run. Seven months of constant vigilance, crippling anxiety and fear, and a slow recovery from her last encounter with HYDRA Agent Daniel Quick. Her strength was already wearing down. Going into hiding was taking its toll with no closer to finding a permanent out. A permanent alias she could hide out under.

Suddenly she was exhausted, focusing on surviving momentarily pushed the far aside. She hoped the mountains provided a more semi-permanent save haven. Katherine let out a slow breathe. She was almost there.

The 'cabin', to call it politely, was a fixer-upper. She did little things to make the rundown place feel a little more like home, a little more than temporary. The barest bones of a home.

Over the past couple of weeks she had turned it into a sanctuary. Shutters blocked out the sunlight. Working generators provided the lights and power needed for her computer. A modern kitchen and bathroom were still a work in progress. In the bathroom, the toilet flushed, to where she was not sure; the shower worked in short bursts of no more than ten moderately cold minutes; and there was no sink. As for a kitchen, she had a working mini, portable stove, a pot and pan, and two organ coolers. One was for food, the other for perishable medicine some of the villages needed.

Her top priority was supplies needed for the emergency care of villagers.

When she slept, her dreams were haunted; keeping her awake when she desperately needed sleep. She was already fragile – half-starved and battered, weak. There were three villages within a day's travel by car from her cabin. She worked traveling from village to village using her truck as a mobile clinic. First and foremost, she was a doctor. Whatever work she does, she's asks for payment in food. Money did her little good.

Create a network of local villagers that were loyal in part to her ability to help them and their children, asking very little of them in return. Create an early warning system. The few people that knew she existed here, the better, but she found the risk acceptable of the reward.

Katherine jerked awake, blinked to bring the room into focus. Her makeshift patient files scattered, her computer on, papers slightly crumpled from where her head was resting on them. She was dreaming again.

She shoved at her hair, felt the little beads of perspiration gathered on her forehead. For a moment she experienced the strange disorientation she always did after her dreams, as if something held her mind for a heartbeat.

Sometimes she felt as if James were haunting her. Hunted and stalked, yes. Haunted…maybe. She blamed herself to be one of James' killers. She would never lose sight of that. She would never be safe again. Not from her memories, from S.H.I.E.L.D, not from HYDRA. It no longer seemed to matter that she fluently spoke five languages, six if you included American Sign, and was a gifted surgeon that saved countless lives. The past was in the past and no longer mattered. All she could hope to do, to fight for, was a future.

The words on the paper in front of her blurred, running together. How long has it been since she's _really_ slept? She sighed, swept a hand through her thick, shoulder-length chestnut hair, shoving it away from her face. She pulled it back lazily and, as always, secured it with whatever was handy.

She was small, near starvation and anxiety causing her to look very delicate, frail. Her skin was sun-kissed, having lost its tan since her stint at Whitmore's. Her eyes were a cool blue, like 'a sunny sky after a spring shower' James said. Her voice was soft. She found that a soft, yet firm voice carried more weight than barked orders and a rough tone.

She stood up, stretched. She was dying slowly. Malnutrition, anxiety, stress. She wasn't taking proper care of herself and she knew it. Part of her wanted it to be this way, die on her own terms rather than at the hands of secret agencies.

"I need air," Katherine huffed. Maybe a walk in the cool forest would make her feel better.

She flung the door to the cabin open and inhaled the night. She listened to the breeze as it whispered to the fox, the rabbit, and the deer. The cry of an owl pierced the air and the squeak of its prey silenced it. For a brief moment in her lonely place of hiding she felt at peace.

She wandered outside to the rickety planks of wood covering mud she called a porch. Her snug jeans and tan hiking boots were fine, but her thin Stones t-shirt would not protect her from the cool mountain air. She quickly reached back into the cottage to grab her sweatshirt and hiking backpack.

The land beckoned her. It held many secrets she wished to explore. Who knew, maybe one of them would provide safe harbor if they ever caught up to her.

She began to wander aimlessly along a trail. In the back of her mind, she faintly wished James were here with her to experience the peace of this place with her. Katherine shook her head, cutting the image of James bleeding out in front of her, mouthing for her to run. Tears welled up but she refused to shed them. A perk of her brutal isolation, she learned to become hard.

From the moment Katherine entered the range of the Venezuelan Coastal Range she felt different. More alive. More at peace. The unrest, the sense of urgency in her grew, but she felt protected, secure, for the first time in months. The plants, the trees, the wildlife. She loved breathing in the air, wading in the water, touching the cool soil.

She raised her face to the sky and watched the bats soaring overhead. They dipped, dived, took pleasure in the simple antics. She began to walk again, needing the exercise, needing to put the weight of hiding off of her shoulders for a while.

She entered the thick forest of trees, touched their trunks. She yawned. She needed to sleep but knew it would not come if she tried. BY now, she was miles from her home in the deep forest, gradually climbing the mountain.

She hasn't come this way before. She felt restless, almost an unshakeable sense of urgency. She felt she needed to be somewhere, somewhere other than hidden away in her cabin. She wanted to turn around and head back, but she kept moving up the path.

She continued to move forward. Nothing seemed to matter at the moment. She was alone with the forest. She moved higher and higher into the wildest, most isolated are of the path. Her hands went up absently to her temples. She felt a headache from her exhaustion begin to take hold. Hunger gnawed absently inside her.

When was the last time she ate? The fruit and chicken an elderly woman gave her for setting her grandson's arm back into place yesterday afternoon was the last thing she remembered eating.

The air temperature began to drop at her altitude. Katherine shivered, running her hands up and down her arms. She continued picking her path, stepping over rotting logs and snapped branches. She approached a rippling stream after twenty minutes. Stepping stones, water splashing against them, paved a wobbly way across the clear stream. It was icy cold when she bent down to idly dip her fingers. The feeling was soothing, calming.

She continued forward. In the back of her mind she thought she was going mad or even sleep walking – traveling so far from the cabin, in the dark, operating on very little sleep. She paused near a small clearing and held her head back to stare up at the star dusted sky. She didn't notice she was moving again until she nearly stumbled over a loose rock heading into a thick grove of trees. A branch snagged her hair, forcing her to stop again.

Her heart felt heavy, her mind clouded. Maybe she would mercifully pass out? Katherine would like that a blessing, to sleep peacefully in the woods were no one would disturb her. Or maybe she would be eaten. She would deserve it for her stupidity in falling asleep in the deep woods.

She laughed at herself and continued to let her body ramble on through the woods to a relatively nonexistent path that was heavily overgrown and weaved in and out of trees. She followed it faithfully, mildly curious where her feet were taking her.

Woods quickly gave way to a larger meadow. At the far end of the meadow, she spotted a smattering of trees looking down on the crumbling remains of an old building.

"Has potential…" she muttered to herself as she crossed the open field.

If this building was salvageable, then she would move in. It was further removed from civilization in the middle of Venezuelan nowhere –

"Never mind," she huffed, disappointed.

The closer she got, the more she noticed. The small cabin had once been a good sized home, but now was a blackened, crumbling, creepy forest ruin. Katherine walked around the perimeter, looking for something that might still be salvageable. The structure's damage couldn't have been more than a month or so old. Most likely down days before she arrived in her cabin down the mountain.

Mildly annoyed that someone would destroy a perfectly good hideout, she kicked a piece of timber that laid by her feet. She immediately regretted that decision. Pain coursed through her leg, radiating from her big toe. She had kicked something solid, metal perhaps.

"What the fuck?"

She knelt down on her knees and ran her hands through the soil a couple times before finding what she kicked. Katherine's breath caught in her throat, and her pulse jumped with excitement. There was something important down there. Why else would a trap door in a burned home be protecting? Carefully brushing aside topsoil, she discovered a large door, six-by-four with a solid metal pull.

"Fucker," she muttered. It took all her strength and then some to lift the door. Once open, she had to sit back to catch her breath and summon the nerve to look down.

There were rickety steps, rotted and cracked with lack of care, which led down into a large room. Katherine went after a moment of hesitation. Curiosity pulled her, caution made her uneasy.

The walls of the cellar were constructed of earth, crumbling stone, and various metal and steel facets. The metal and steel were the only updates to the medieval décor.

 _Kinky illegal Venezuelan sex dungeon?_ Katherine thought to herself. It made her stomach queasy. That would be a good enough reason to burn the place down.

The room looked relatively untouched. There were dried, dark droplets and pools on the floor and radiating sprays on the walls and ceiling. She couldn't positively identify the dark stains as blood, but her instincts were leaning in that direction. Whatever had happened here before the cabin was torched, it was not pleasant.

The only light came from the moonlight shining through the open cellar floor she came in through. She placed her hand on the wall and skimmed across it in search for a switch. Caution begged her to leave while curiosity convinced her to look around a bit more. She shook her distress away.

Her feet found something before her eyes did. She blinked several times for the image to come into a semi-clear view. She was on the opposite side of the cellar's opening and the moon's light. She reached her hand out and felt around. In front of her, a wooden plank rested on top a lengthy metal box. It was probably seven feet long and three feet wide.

Almost reminded her of the metal coffins she'd seen soldier packed into to be shipped home from overseas.

Something was deliberately being covered up. Another door to another cellar? Seemed unlikely. The door to this cellar was bolted to the ground with a metal latch pull. This piece of wood wasn't connected to anything, just acted as a lid for the metal box.

"What the hell," Katherine sighed, placing her hands on the edge of the wood. "There could be something in here."

 _Like creepy dungeon porn_ , her brain reminded her, _or a dead body_. She shivered at the thought. Both of those options did not sound appealing. She silently counted to three before shifting half of the wooden board off the metal box.

Katherine stifled a scream, backing away to the stairs across the room, horrified by what she uncovered. She collapsed to her knees, her breathing in short gasps.

"Oh God," she whispered to herself, over and over again as she struggled to get her breathing under control.

It was a coffin.

Who would bury someone in a metal box before torching the place?

Something – morbid curiosity you could call it – compelled her to her feet. Slowly this time she walked back to the box. Her hand trembled as she reached out gingerly to shove off the rest of the wooden lid.


	7. Chapter 7

Katherine stood frozen, for a moment unable to breathe or even think. What the hell was going on? What happened to the man in front of her, tortured and mutilated. She closed her eyes briefly to block out the image. The stench was overwhelming without the lid. The world was brutal. What he must have endured, the pain and suffering, before….

Wait.

Katherine gently brushed away dirt from the man's face. Oxygen mask. It was small, barely covering his nose and mouth, but there was a thin plastic tub that connected to it. If it was intact and working, there was a possibility he might still be alive. On the other hand…how long has he been down here? Was there any oxygen left?

She needed to know. Katherine took a deep breath, the putrid smell choking her, and made herself look. Dead or alive, he was buried alive before the coffin was sealed. She looked down at the plank on the floor. There were scratch marks cut deep into the wood. In the limited light, she could see a couple finger nails embedded in the wood.

Katherine gently unearthed the man, cupping her hands in the dirt and tossing it onto the floor. Little by little, she was able to see more of him. She was growing more horrified by what she saw. She sucked in her breath, appalled. His hands and ankles were handcuffed with zip ties. There were thousands of cuts, burns, and gashes all over the man's body. A short pipe had been driven through the man's chest near his heart.

That confirmed it – he was dead.

There could be no way that a man, even with an oxygen tank, would live through that. Pain, hunger, blood loss. All would quicken a painful death.

There was one burn that drew her attention. She leaned in closer to it to blow the flecks of dirt away. It took her a moment to recognize the design, the structure, or the burn. She took a step back from the man in the coffin.

"S.H.I.E.L.D," she gasped.

Whoever had done this to the man was a part of S.H.I.E.L.D., burning their emblem into the man's chest. Whatever members of the organization that hadn't joined HYDRA must have gone rouge. But of what need was this? Why torture and barbarically murder this man?

Overcome by pity, she stepped closer to the man. He was naked, she did her best to preserve some modesty to the corpse, keeping his 'private' area covered by dirt. She leaned in closer for better look. The smell was stifling, but his body showed no signs of advanced decay. He must have succumbed to his wounds not long ago. Perhaps no more than two days, three tops.

Lines of agony were creased into the man's face. The signs of suffering would forever be stamped into the man's face, acting like a death shroud. Greif welled up in Katherine, real grief for a man she did not know.

She touched his dirty, black hair with gentle fingers.

"I'm sorry this happened to you," she whispered softly. "I'm sorry."

A slow hiss of air was her only warning. Eyelids snapped open, and she was staring into eyes blazing with venomous hatred. A burst of energy ripped the ties binding his hands apart. Before she could move, his hand was clasped around her throat. It felt like a vise, squeezing her throat, suffocating her.

He was strong. But how?

Her eyes darted around, looking for a weapon. She contemplated ripping the pipe out of the man's chest, but she had neither the strength nor the reach to get to it. Her eyes landed on something else. Two near-empty bags were zip tied to his forearm, a tube leading down to the junction of his arm. He was being injected with something…

His grasp tightened. It was impossible to scream now, not that anyone would have heard her. He was cutting off her airway. Everything in front of her began to swirl, darkness over taking her, able to her blood crashing in her ear like ocean waves.

She began to realize why this was happening. Abandoned cellar, hidden deep in the forest, man buried half-alive with oxygen and strange liquid being pumped into him…..this man was a science experiment.

Fear was the last thing she would remember before slipping away.

҉

Katherine woke dizzy and weak. She had a headache, and her throat was so sore that she was afraid to move.

 _I'm alive…._

She frowned, unable to recognize her surroundings. She heard herself moan.

 _Painfully alive…_

She was in lying at an awkward angle. She felt her feet dangling, yet touching the ground; something hard cutting into her chest as she laid on it; and her face in the dirt. She blinked faster, clearing her head.

It was the metal coffin. She was leaning over it, half her body in the dirt. One arm was locked behind her, something tight gripping her wrist. She tugged to get her arm back, but the grip tightened, threating to break her bones.

Her heart jumped, and with her free hand she touched her throat. She remembered she was attacked. Her throat felt swollen and bruised. There was a wound, too, torn and aching. His nails had clawed open her neck, nicked a vein….

She pulled her hand away and saw dark coating on her fingers. She could tell she had lost a good amount of blood. Her head was spinning, further fragmented by the pressure increasing in her head.

To take pressure off her arm, she inched backwards, closer to the man that tried to kill her. His fingers encircled her wrist like the ties she found him in. She knew that if she tried anything, he would break her bones.

Part of her was understanding. Torture and being buried alive, only to find a strange woman hoovering over you when you wake up….attacking was a primal instinct.

On the other hand, she was _pissed_ he tried to kill her. Once she figured a way out of this, she wanted to return the favor.

Steeling herself, Katherine turned her head slowly to look at him. The movement was intensely painful, taking her breath away. She could see he removed the oxygen mask, it laid discarded by his head. He locked eyes with her. Involuntarily, Katherine struggled to get away. There was something about those eyes – black, burning with hatred and rage.

His fingers tightened on her wrist, further crushing it, locked her to him. He dragged out a cry of pain and fear from her battered throat. Her head pounded. Tears pinpricked her eyes.

"Stop!" She yelled, but he continued. Her forehead pushed deeper into the dirt in her struggles. "I can't help you if you hurt me!"

When he softened his grip very slightly, she looked up at him. "Do you understand? I am _all_ you've got."

She forced herself to hold his venomous gaze. He had the most frightening eyes she had ever encountered, and she worked on Director Fury. That had to be saying something.

"My name is Katherine Lucas. I am a doctor." She repeated herself in Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Italian. She gave up when his burning eyes gave no indication of recognition. He gave no mercy.

He wasn't soulless, but an animal. He had been hurt, trapped, and now he was confused. A predator dangerous beyond belief, reduced to a helpless shell.

"I'll help you if you let me go," she crooned as if she was talking to a hurt animal. Soothing, gentle. "I have tools in my vehicle. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Her free hand slipped to his mutilated chest. She froze, expecting a violent reaction from him. When it didn't come, her hand gingerly lifted. His color was improving. Fresh blood was seeping from around the pipe, leaking from his countless other wounds. The sudden exertion must have torn them open.

On his writs was a thin, ragged tear from breaking the zip tie that bound them.

"You're in pain." She said slowly, forcing herself to make eye contact. "I'm a doctor. I can help you. I can't remove the pipe until I get you to my cabin. You will bleed to death. You will get an infection."

She repeated herself in the four other languages, hoping to make some sense to him. She was surprised then the man released her slowly, reluctantly. His eyes never left her face. She could tell he was slowly losing energy. His eyelids fluttered for a moment before fastening his gaze on her like a brand.

Katherine glanced upward at the ceiling entrance nervously. Much time had passed while she lay unconscious. Dawn was almost here. She leaned over him, yet careful enough to keep some distance between his hand and her throat.

"I have to get some things. I'll be as fast as I can. I will come back, I promise."

She had begun to turn when he moved. She saw he coming out of the corner or her eye, but he was strangely too fast for her. His hand clamped around her neck, jerking her back off her feet, scraping her spine across the metal edge of the coffin, to where she fell across him.

She tried clawing at his arms and hand, but he shook her and applied more pressure. The pain was excruciating. She struggled against him as best she could but that only enticed him.

He was killing the one person that could save him.

Katherine's hand, flailing blindly in her darkening vision, found his hair. Her fingers tangled in the dirty, thick mane, and pulled as hard as she could. She clawed at his scalp, his face, but she was beginning to lose consciousness again. Her fingers remained in his hair when she slumped nearly lifeless across his upper chest. She could vaguely feel the pipe pushing into her side, her shirt soaking up his blood.

The last thing she heard before passing out entirely was his heartbeat; weak, but slow and steady.


	8. Chapter 8

Katherine Lucas woke slowly, face down in the dirt. Her throat was raw and throbbing, the taste of blood coating her mouth. She was sick and dizzy, the light coming down from the cellar door was blinding. She realized the sun was at its peak. Her body felt like lead.

Where was she?

She was cold and disoriented. Katherine pushed herself to her knees, then had to lower her head to avoid fainting. She had never felt so weak, so helpless. It was a frightening feeling.

Awareness hit her like a truck.

She scrambled back on all fours across the dirt floor. With her back to the wall and the width of the room between them, she stared in horror at the coffin. He was still, like death. She could not see his breathing.

Katherine pressed the back of one shaking hand to her mouth to keep a sob escaping. She was not going near him again, dead or alive. Even as the thought came, the doctor side of her still felt the need to help. Some masochistic part of her would not let go.

She rubbed her pounding temples.

Someone had taken their time torturing this man, derived pleasure from his suffering. They had inflicted as much pain as they could and then buried him alive with false hope in the form of an oxygen tank and whatever was in the packets IV in is arm.

How long?

Part of her knew it was inhumane to consider leaving him half-alive, maybe entirely dead. She didn't want to get near him to find out. But she had to do something.

"Fool me once, shame on me," She muttered to herself as she pushed her back against the wall to a standing position. "Fool me twice, shame on me."

The room started to spin. She leaned against the cellar wall until it stopped. She unbuckled her belt, wrapping it around her hand so that the sharp point was between her fingers.

"Fool me thrice, you're dead."

If he was in terrible pain, it would be _understandable_ that he would be disoriented, even confused. Katherine scoffed, _understandable._ It's obvious he's out of his mind. Right now he seemed to be lethargic (dead even?). It was either go now or risk another attack.

Katherine found her bag and left.

Crossing the meadow was a kind of hell. She had no sunglasses to protect the light from her eyes, they kept watering so her vision was constantly blurring. Unable to see the ground clearly, she fell several times, scraping her knees and hands. The sun beat down on her, relentless in heat and pain. The shadows of the forest provided some relief, but not much.

Hurrying, two hours later, her cottage was in view.

She tripped up the racketing stairs to the porch. Her eyes were on fire, her hands were bloody from her scrapes. She slammed the door shut with more force than she intended. She curled up with her back to the doors, her head between her knees, taking deep breaths to calm down.

She examined her swollen neck and throat in the bathroom. There were terrible bruises and claw marks, dried blood cracking and flaking. She looked battered and beaten.

She walked past her equipment staging area in the living room and paused beside it. She drummed her fingers on the metal edge of her instrument tray. She'd just cleaned them from a small surgery she performed on a local boy with appendicitis.

"Don't do it," she muttered to herself, chewing on the inside of her cheek. "Don't fucking do it…."

"Fuck."

She sighed, gathering up the immediate medical instruments she would need, tools and rope. She arranged them in the bed of her truck. The windows of her camper were already blacked out, but she would need to cover him to get him into the truck. Sudden and violent exposure to sunlight could piss him off even more. She returned to the cottage for a blanket.

A wave of dizziness drove her too her knees. She was very weak and getting weaker. If she was going to save the murderous cellar abomination, she must help herself first. It had taken a couple hours to make it back to the cottage, and she hated wasting more time.

Her head ached, her throat was raw, and most of all she was terrified. She did not want to feel his hand wrapped around her throat again. The thought made her physically ill.

Katherine quickly prepared the cabin for the surgery ahead. She laid out instruments to remove the pipe and sutures to repair the damage. Thankfully she had blood to give him. She thought of nothing more than the task at hand as she drove back to the burnt ruin.

The sun was gliding towards the mountains by the time she positioned the truck in front of the cellar entrance and, using a winch, lowered a cable into the hole. Taking a breath, afraid of what she might find, Katherine made her way down the rickety stairs.

Instantly she felt the effect of his burning eyes. Her heart thudded fearfully, but she forced herself to cross the cellar until she was standing just out of his reach. He was watching her with a predator's stare.

He had awakened alone, still trapped. Fear and pain and intolerable hunger clawed at him. His black eyes fastened on her face in accusation, in rage, with the dark promise of retaliation.

"Listen to me," she said in the languages she knew, even desperately using sign language. "Understand me. I need to get you into my truck. It's going to hurt you, I won't lie. I would try to pump you full of drugs to make this a whole lot easier on you and me, but I don't think there's a fat chance of that so I'm not even going to try."

Katherine was beginning to stammer underneath his unnerving glare.

"Look, I didn't do this to you. I'm trying my damn best to help you. Don't fucking kill me. I die. You die."

His eyes commanded her to step closer. She brought a hand up to shove at her hair and found she was trembling.

"I'm going to have to tie you in so when I hook in the cable to the…" She trailed off, biting her lip. "Quit staring at me that way. This is hard enough as is."

She approached him cautiously. It took every ounce of courage she possessed to step to his side.

He could feel her fear, see the frantic beat of her heart in the artery in her neck. There was terror in her eyes, in her voice, yet she still came to him. He didn't force her compliance, the pain made him weak. He chose to conserve his energy.

It astonished him that she came to him despite her fear. Her fingers were cool on his skin, felt soothing in his filthy hair.

"Trust me. I know I am asking a lot. This is all I can do."

The eyes never left her face. Slowly, trying to avoid alarming him, Katherine padded the area around the rusty pipe with folded towels, hoping that moving him wouldn't kill him. She covered him with a blanket to protect him from the sun.

He simply watched her, seemingly uninterested, yet she knew by the way he held himself, that he was coiled and ready to strike if needed. When she would have secured him in the metal coffin to minimize jarring and bleeding, he caught her wrist in the viselike grip she was becoming familiar with.

"Okay. I'll leave your arm free."

It was difficult to remain still, waiting for his decision, her eyes held captive by his burning gaze. It seemed like an eternity. Katherine could feel his rage seething just below the surface. Every second ticked by made it more difficult to keep her courage. She was not altogether certain he was sane.

Reluctantly, finger by finger, he released her. Katherine didn't make the mistake of touching his arm again. Very carefully she hooked the cable handle at the head of the coffin.

She knew he had been blindfolded as a part of his torture. She knew that covering his eyes, even to protect him from the sun, wasn't going to be a possibility. But she at least had to try.

"I have to put this over your eyes. The sun is sinking, but there's enough light to blind you. It'll just lay across your face, I'm not tying it. You can take it off at any time."

As she spoke, she laid the cloth across his eyes. He ripped it off, fingers automatically shackling her wrist in warning. His strength was enormous, nearly crushing her bones, yet she had the feeling it wasn't his intention to hurt her. He had drawn a clear line for her, what was acceptable to him and what was not.

"Okay, no cloth." Her tongue found her lower lip; her teeth followed.

His black gaze simply watched her, followed the movement of her tongue, and came back to her vivid eyes. Watching. Learning.

"You can use my sunglasses until I get you into the camper." Katherine placed the dark glasses very gently on his nose. "I'm sorry. This is going to hurt."

Katherine took a cautious step backward. It was worse not seeing his eyes. Another step. His mouth twisted in a silent snarl; white teeth gleamed. She ran a split second before his arm snaked out with blinding speed. His nails ripped a deep furrow in her arm.

She cried out, clutching her arm, but kept running until she reached the rotten stairs. The light hit her eyes, blinding her, sending pain splintering through her head. Katherine squeezed her eyes closed, stumbled to the truck, started the winch. Intellectually, she knew he had struck her out of fear that she was deserting him.

The whine of the cable stopped abruptly. Katherine felt her way around the truck, opened the tailgate, slid down the ramp, and threaded the cable back through the cab into the shell. The winch loaded the coffin smoothly into the pickup bed. She couldn't bring herself to get close to him again until it was absolutely necessary. BY now he would be in so much pain that he might try to kill her before she could convince him that she was torturing him.


	9. Chapter 9

The drive to her cabin took longer than it should have. She drive slowly, trying to avoid every rock and bump in the dirt track. As it was, even with four-wheel drive, it was hard going. Katherine was curious softly by the time she backed the truck practically onto her porch.

"Please don't grab me and kill me," she muttered softly. One more time ripping at her throat and she might never be able to help anyone again. Taking a deep breath she opened the tailgate and shoved the dolly over the ramp. Without looking at him, she lowered the coffin onto the dolly and wrestled him inside.

He never made a sound. Not a groan, not a sob, not a curse. He was in agony; she could tell by the sweat coating his body, but the white lines around his mouth and the stark pain reflected in his eyes when it was finally safe to remove the sunglasses.

Katherine was exhausted, her arms aching and weak. She was forced to take a moment to rest, leaning against the wall, fighting a wave of dizziness. His eyes were back on her face, simply staring at her. She hated his silence, instinctively knowing that those who had tortured him had not received the satisfaction of hearing his cries. It made her feel like one of them. Movement had to be excruciatingly painful for him.

Working quickly, she got him onto the gurney beside her operating table.

"All right, I'm going to get you out of this box."

She needed the sound of her voice even if he didn't understand. She had tried several languages, and he hadn't responded yet. There seemed to be intelligence, knowledge in his eyes. He didn't fully trust her, but it was possible he realized her intention was to help him.

Grasping her sharpest knife, Katherine leaned over him to get at the thick ropes. Instantly he caught her wrist, preventing movement. Her heart sank; he didn't understand her after all. She closed her eyes, steeling herself for the pain of nails ripping through her flesh. When nothing happened, she looked at him, fully expecting to meet his blazing eyes.

He was examining the ling gash on her arm, his eyes slightly narrowed, lids half-closed. He turned her arm one way, then the other, as if fascinated by the long line of blood from wrist to elbow. Impatient, Katherine tugged to get away. His fingers clamped down hard, but he didn't look at her face.

"You're bleeding again, wild man. We need to hurry."

He released her reluctantly, and Katherine slashed through the ropes.

"It's okay to yell at me if you have to," she chattered.

She cleared the coffin of dirt with a hand trowel. It took a while to clear the dirt from the coffin. When she emptied enough to visibly see his chest, she saw blackened, charred flesh across his legs and up and down his legs. She took her a power tool and began unscrewing the bolts holding the metal coffin together.

"Since you can't understand a word I say, I'll admit I'm glad about that."

She stood back slightly to take away the metal frame, dirt spilling away onto the cottage floor. He laid there on a metal slab, empty oxygen tank between his legs, empty bags attached to his arm through IV.

"There, I'll cut your clothes away and get that thing out of you."

His clothes were all but cut away already. She had never seen a body so battered before. She removed the IV, bags, and tank. She brushed perspiration from her brow with her forearm before bending over him once more.

"I need to move you onto this table. I know I'm jarring you, but it's the only way."

He didn't respond, only did the impossible. As Katherine took the weight of his broad shoulders, attempting to slide him over, in a feat of hidden courage and strength he shifted himself onto the table. Blood mixed with sweat beaded on his forehead, trickled down the side of his face.

"Shit."

His quick movement had jarred the pipe even more so, fresh blood oozing from the grotesque wound. For a moment Katherine couldn't go on. Her body was seized with tremors, and she lowered her head to clear her thoughts. It took a few moments of fighting for control before she raised her head to meet the impact of his menacing gaze.

"I'm going to knock you out. It's the _only_ way I can do this. If anesthesia doesn't work then I'll….hit you over the head or something."

She meant it, too. She was not going to torture him as the others have done. He reached out to touch her cheek, but Katherine pulled away. She wouldn't let him touch her under any circumstance in fear he would kill her, or at least bring her close as a warning.

Katherine washed thoroughly, pulled on sterile gloves and a surgical mask. When she would have put a mask over his face too, but he warned her off with a wrist lock that immobilized her. It was the same when she tried a needle.

Black eyes blazed at her. She shook her head at him.

"Don't be an idiot, wild man. Please don't make me do it like this. I'm not a butcher." She tried to sound tough and not fearful. "I won't do it without anesthesia."

They stared at one another, locked in a strange mental combat. His black eyes burned into her, demanded obedience; his rage, always seething, was beginning to surface. Katherine's tongue touched her lower lip; her teeth followed, scraping nervously. Satisfaction crept into the black of his eyes, and he lay back, certain he had won.

"Stubborn asshole." She walked to her medium sized cooler that held all the blood she needed. Only problem, she didn't know his blood type. No blood type, blood transfusion becomes useless. Beside the cooler was a large cardboard box of disposable, single use Eldoncard Blood Type Test Kit. With every patient she takes on, she creates a file for them.

She ripped open the plastic package and pulled out the various parts, setting them down on the cooler. With the pipet, she placed a drop of water in each of the four circles, marked with a different color to represent the four blood types. She took the lancet and an alcohol swab and walked over the man on her table.

She held the lancet up for him to see.

"I need to prick your finger. You'll feel a slight pinch."

She carefully turned over his hand so that his palm was lying face up on the table. She separated his index finger from the others with one hand, and with the other swabbed the tip of his finger with the alcohol.

As she pricked his finger, she asked, "You wouldn't happen to know your blood type, would you?"

He didn't jerk away like she expected him to when she pricked his finger. She set the lancet down and squeezed the tip of his finger to draw the blood out. She went back to the cooler to throw away the lancet and swab, and then bring back four mixing sticks, each color coded like the sheet of paper. She applied an equal amount of blood to each stick.

She brought the sticks back to the cooler. One by one in accordance with the colors, she placed a stick on the watery circle and stirred for ten seconds, covering the entire circle in blood. She did this four times. She tilted the card back and forth, side to side, until the blood dried.

"A-positive," Katherine said as she cleaned up the kit. She then rolled the cooler over to the man on the table.

"Don't be an asshole and grab me. You're going to need blood. You'll be awake, unfortunately, and I'll rather not have you pass out from blood loss rather than shock."

She prepped the transfusion and blood bags that she would need. Given the extent, she estimated four to five pints. She got the tubes and valves connected from the transfusion apparatus on top of the cooler into a single IV line; when one bag would empty, she would only have to flip the valve switch and another bag would flow into him.

She held up the needle with the blood bag IV connected to it and another alcohol swab.

"I don't have any iodine, so bear with me. I'll clean your arm with this," she held up the swab, "then insert the IV. No drugs, just blood."

Slowly, as to not startle him, she cleaned the end in his arm, found a suitable vein, and inserted the needle. As she was putting the needle in, she spared a glance at his face, gauging his temperament. If anything changed, she wanted to get away from his reach.

The IV was in. She put a clamp on it to stop the blood flow until she was ready. She didn't need him loosing clean blood when she pulled the pipe out.

She cleansed the area around the pipe, set up her clamps, all the time wishing for a good surgical nurse and a large mallet. She gritted her teeth and pulled with all her strength. He moved, just a ripple through his muscles, contracting, flexing, but she knew he was in agony.

The pipe would not budge.

"Damn it! I told you I couldn't do this with you awake-"

Before she could finish, he seized the pipe himself and jerked it free. Blood gushed, sprayed her face and torso, the wall and floor around them. She fought the urge to gag and fell silent. She rushed into work, releasing the clamp that held the blood IV, desperately clamping off every source of bleeding she could.

She didn't look at him. Every ounce of concentration focused on her work. Katherine was meticulous. She worked methodically, repairing damage, as a fast, steady pace, blocking out everything around her. Her entire being was centered on the surgery.

Twice she added light for close work, suturing for hours. So many stitches inside and out, and when his chest was done she still wasn't finished. All his other cuts had to be washed and closed. The smallest laceration took a single stitch, the largest forty-two. It went on and on as the night closed them in. Her fingers were nearly numb, and her eyes ached with strain. Stoically, she went on cutting away dead flesh.

Exhausted, hardly knowing what she was doing, she pulled off her mask and gloves and surveyed her work. He needed more blood. His eyes were nearly mad with pain.

"You need another transfusion," she said tiredly. She opened the cooler and switched out the five empty blood bags for three fresh ones. She saved her remaining two A-positive bags for later.

She didn't want to move him a great deal given that she had just spent nearly nine hours fixing him up, but she needed to get him off her table. The bed was close by; she would just have to wheel the table to the bed. His gaze never left her face.

Slowly and with great care, she shifted him onto the comfortable, clean bed. She swore she hear a soft sigh from him as he briefly closed his eyes. She stumbled twice, so exhausted that she was half-asleep as she went to retrieve the blood cooler and transfusion apparatus. She left it beside the bed and checked on his IV.

Like a robot, she cleaned up – sterilizing instruments, washing down the gurney and tables, bagging the remains of the rotting rags, and the blood soaked towels for burning at first chance. She shifted the remains of the metal coffin to the front door. Those, she had no idea what to do with. The light caught a small etching on the bottom of one of the metal frames. Taking a closer look it was the S.H.I.E.L.D emblem, their words encircling a minimalistic eagle.

"Fucking shit…."

She knew one of them – either S.H.I.E.L.D or HYDRA – was behind this, meaning the wild man in her bed was one of them. A S.H.I.E.L.D agent tortured by HYRDA; a HYDRA agent tortured by S.H.I.E.L.D. The last made more sense given that it was a S.H.I.E.L.D coffin…meaning the man in her bed was HYDRA.

There was a small part in the back of her brain that tried to reason that he was neither, an innocent bystander caught up in their international game of cat and mouse. Tortured by either side in a S.H.I.E.L.D safe house, or made to look like S.H.I.E.L.D. by using their equipment…..

She shook her head. All these options made her already aching head hurt even more. She needed more time, and sleep, to mull through it all. Until then, focus on the task at hand.

By the time Katherine finished sweeping and cleaning the floor from all the dirt, sweat, and blood, dawn was approaching. The shutters were closed tightly to block out the sun. She bolted the door and dragged a shotgun and a 9mm pistol from the closet. Propping them up near her only comfortable chair, she tossed a blanket and pillow onto the cushion. She knew she needed sleep, but until she knew exactly who this man was she wasn't going to let him hurt her even more than he already has.

She looked over at the wild man. He was fast asleep, knocked out due to shock and trauma. _Thank God_ …

She looked down at herself. She felt just as disgusting as she looked. She needed a shower, desperately. She took emptied the shotgun, took the ammo and the pistol, and headed into the bathroom. If he woke up and attacked, he didn't have a weapon while she at least had a pistol.

In the shower she allowed the hot water to pour over her, rinsing blood, seat, dirt, and grime from her body. Katherine nearly fell asleep standing up. She ran a towel through her hair before tying it sloppily in a bun on her head. She pulled on a clean pair of jeans and a baggy Smiths tee, no bra. She stumbled barefoot out to check on her patient.

He was still sleeping. She quietly placed the pistol on top of the cooler beside the bed, within her reach and not his. With equally quiet and gentle fingers, she checked on his bandages. Everything seemed to be holding together nicely, his body was accepting the blood.

Very gently she touched his hair, her fingertips tracing the sharp bones of his face.

"Now who the hell are you, wild man?" She whispered.

Speaking was a mistake. His eyes flew open. She had enough time to mutter, "Oh Shit", before his palm spanned her throat, fingers curling around her neck. He jerked her toward him, away from the gun on top the cooler.

"No," she tried to moan in protest, her fingers scratching his hand.

He increased pressure, almost tenderly the back of her mind thought ridiculously, until he had pulled her onto the bed beside him and out of reach of the gun. His thumb found the pulse beating frantically in her neck and applied pressure. Katherine tried struggling, but the more she did the more her sleep deprived brain cared less. She closed her eyes against the waves beating in her head.

Searing pain and pressure gave way to a warmth and drowsiness. Katherine relaxed against him.


	10. Chapter 10

He could decide life or death. He enjoyed the control he exerted over her, having been without it for so long. He felt the fluttering on her heart against his chest, the slowing of her pulse against his thumb.

He let go. He felt the soft rise and fall of her chest against his. He decided she could live.

There was something terribly wrong with him; he understood that. Part of him was locked away so that he had no past. Fragments of memory seemed like shards of glass piercing his skull, so he tried not to allow them in.

For now, she was his entire world. Somehow, he knew she was his only sanity, his only path out of his dark prison of pain and madness.

He was so aware of her presence in the world. He wished he could bend her will and command her obedience, but must wait.

Nothing made any sense. He suffered and caused her suffering in return. He could tell she feared him, yet feared _for him_ in a small way. I didn't make sense. She had already hurt enough at his hands.

He was weak, vulnerable in his present state, unable to protect either of them. The woman was small and fragile. He had been so alone. Without light or color. He never wanted to go back to that dark, ugly world.

As small as she was, the woman felt right in his arms, a part of his insides. None of it made sense to him, but in his narrow world it didn't matter. He might not be at full strength, but the monster in him was strong and lethal.

No one would harm them.

The one bit of memory he clung to were of the two men and the woman who created this living hell. He would recognize her face anywhere – brunette hair, brown doe eyes, sharp tongue, black gun. Her name would come later. He would recognize the men's voices. They made him suffer and enjoyed his suffering. Laughing, taunting, torturing him until madness reigned.

And it still reigned. He knew he was struggling for his sanity.

He would never forget the hunger as they bled him dry. Hunger had burned holes in him, crawled through him, eaten at him from the inside out. To survive he slept; he had trained his heart and lungs to slow to almost no function. What little blood his body had left, he kept. He woke only when hunger stirred. Alone always, unable to move, in agony. He had learned hatred. He had learned rage. He had learned there was a place where there was nothing, only stark, ugly emptiness and the burning desire for revenge.

There was something terribly important eluding him. It slipped in and out of his mind, leaving pain and fragments in its wake. If he could just hold it for a moment he might remember, but it never stayed long enough to do other than drive him mad. It was unbearably frustrating to have his memory taken from him.

Were these same people hunting Katherine? The thought of her in their hands sickened him. He fit her close to him so he could feel her reassuring touch. Was she being hunted? Were they close? Could she have lead them here? He wanted to kill her, and he almost did several times. He wanted to do it now with the thought of them finding him again, but something inside him had been unable to do it.


	11. Chapter 11

Katherine groaned softly, the sound cutting through the silent cabin like a knife. She was shivering in her thin tee-shirt and wet hair. She was in pain. The wild man beside her laid his hand on her stomach fingers splayed wide.

She rolled over, landing on the cold floor harshly on her knees, to get away from him. She didn't like him touching her. She clutched her stomach, her eyes wide in fear. She was extremely cold, as if she would never be warm again. Shivering, she could only rock back and forth as wave after wave of pain shook her small frame.

Heat was burning her insides, eating through her internal organs, squeezing her heart, her lungs. In the back of her mind, she blamed the wild man in her bed for passing along some sort of virus to her. The towel unraveled from her head, damp and tangled chestnut hair pooled around her head. Her abdomen was on fire. A fine sheen of sweat coated her body.

She could see the wild man try to move, to get her, but she pulled away. She collapsed painfully on her side and pushed off the leg of the bed to slide away from him. He couldn't reach her.

Katherine's half-starved body writhed, locked, then writhed again. She rolled slowly to her knees, and tried to crawl toward her medical bag. She wasn't thinking; the movements were blind, instinctive. She had no idea where she was or what was happening to her, only that she wanted, _needed_ , the fire to stop.

She could hear the wild man behind her struggling to move. She didn't know if it was to help her or to put her out of her misery. At the moment, she was half tempted to let him. Finally, he lay back.

She groaned, rolled over, and curled up in the fetal position, making herself as small as possible. She didn't want to go near him, she didn't want him near her. Another wave of fire beat at her, attacking her internally, spreading to every organ. She could only draw up her knees like an animal and waited for it to pass.

Katherine was going to be sick. Something in her, some shred of dignity she had left, made it possible to drag herself to the bathroom. She did it slowly, choking down bile, but she made it. She kicked the door to the bathroom shut behind her.

She fought to stop the endless stomach spasms, her agony intense. Outside the small bathroom window, she could hear the wind pick up as it howled at the windows and ripped through the trees.

Faintly, she could hear a low growl rumble in the other room and the sound of sheets ripping. The wild man.

She was in there for hours, huddled over the toilet dry heaving. Her saving grace in her painful struggle was the cool porcelain seat. She laid her cheek on the seat, breathing in rancid toilet water. In a brief moment of calm, she dug a water bottle of water out from the molding cupboard beneath the sink. She splashed the water on her face, rinsing out her mouth and spitting it into the toilet.

Katherine pushed herself off the wall and stumbled back into the bedroom, her face starkly white, shadows under her eyes. The bruises and the wounds on her throat stood out plainly. She looked breakable.

Curiously enough, the wild man held out his hand to her, the expression in his dark eyes a mixture of demand and gentleness.

"I think you gave me rabies, asshole."

Rabies, the flue, or some other shit thing she could have contracted from treating him or being in that cellar. Either way, with her immune system compromised already, she was fucked.

She made her way carefully to the bed to grab a pillow so she could crash on the uncomfortable wicker chair. It came to no surprise that the wild man grabbed her upper arm and pulled her onto the bed beside him. She was too exhausted to care. She rolled into a ball, burying her face into her pillow, praying for death to end her agony. By illness's hand or his; a bright side could be that if he killed her, he'd get infected, too, given his own weakened condition.

Payback's a bitch.

But he didn't try to hurt her. His hand gently, almost tenderly, pushed back the heavy fall of hair from around her face, traced his vivid thumbprint on her neck. He touched her swollen throat, examined his work of her wounds. Katherine was behind him, locked in her own world of suffering.

This was so wrong.

He wrapped an arm around her waist, offering her what comfort he could. Dawn was approaching and sleep was over taking them. Tomorrow would come and bring with it its own problems.


	12. Chapter 12

The cottage silence was broken by the hum of the night animals. The sun was setting. Air filled his lungs, his heart beat. The rush of agony overwhelmed him, took his breath, pulled him from his mind. He lay still, waiting for his mind to accept the atrocities done to his body. Hunger rose, a sharp, gnawing pain in his stomach. Rage flooded him, feeding his need to kill something….someone. It would fill his terrible emptiness.

In the mist of the intense, violent emotional swirl came something soft and gentle. A wisp of memory – courage, beauty, a woman. The woman beside him?

He wrapped a length of her hair around one fist, afraid to wake her, afraid she would be in pain. Katherine….that's what her name was. Katherine. He listened to her breathing, to the sound of her heart beating beneath her chest. Her eyelids fluttered. She burrowed against him for warmth, unknowingly for a moment.

If she were still ill, she would need to sleep. There would be no point in the both of them being useless. Yet he also needed her awake to give him a transfusion and to feed him. He couldn't move yet without destroying whatever she had put back together of him. He needed her to stay alive and he hated her for it.

Within moments of waking up, her mind was racing – recalling her sickness the night before, going through the symptoms and illnesses that she could have gotten from the bipolar nutcase she pulled out of the cellar.

Her body was sore. She was hungry, weak, and communed by fear – of those hunting her, most likely the same people that had done this to the wild man; and fear of the wild man himself, his sanity, his identity, and oddly enough his recovery. A wave of guilt hit her as she thought of compassion for him. The man had tried killing her several times, probably got her sick, and always wants to cuddle. Why she would have compassion or sympathy for him was beyond her knowledge. She didn't want to feel it…but a corner in the back of her mind did.

She sat up gingerly, swept back her tangled, wild hair. "You're not going to strangle me again, are you?

He watched her curiously with his black, fathomless eyes, not speaking. She eyed him wearily in return.

"I've got to tell you, there isn't a place on my body that isn't sore." She rolled her eyes, frustrated. "And you probably don't even understand me. Great."

His hand reached out to her and she automatically flinched. She hadn't meant to, but she did. Sign of abuse.

The wild man ignored her jolt and placed his hand on her thigh. She stilled, becoming tense, her thigh locking up. If he was looking for attention that wasn't medical, he was about to something entirely different. She remembered the gun on top of the cooler. All she had to do was reach….

The wild man's fingers began to trace something on her blue jean clad leg. A letter….then words. Two words – _'I can'._

"You…You understand me?"

The wild man tapped her leg, indicating what he already wrote, nodding his head.

"You understand English?"

He tapped her leg again.

"Then why haven't you said anything?"

' _Cant'_ , the wild man wrote.

"Why?"

' _?'_ he drew on her leg.

"You don't know." The man nodded his head. "Okay, I'll take a look. Just…just keep your hands to yourself, alright?"

He nodded, dropping his hands to his sides. Katherine adjusted herself on the bed so that she was sitting on the edge, but close enough so that she was leaning over him. She didn't want to be too far away from the gun. She tried not to let her hands shake noticeably as she gingerly felt around his neck and throat, tilting his chin up to have a better look. When she found nothing, she asked him to open his mouth. There was a pen light on the nightstand table, beside the cooler. She had a choice – reach for the pen light or reach for the gun. The wild man never took his eyes off of her. He saw her hesitation and turned his head on the pillow to see what was distracting her.

The gun.

His gaze flicked back to her face. He could tell she was debating with herself on which choice she would make. Her hand reached out and for a moment, he thought she was going for the gun. He readied himself to grab her arm and twist it behind her the moment her hand touched the cool metal, maybe just grab her neck and snap it to finish her off.

Her fingers landed on the pen light.

The wild man opened his mouth again. When she looked inside, she could see irritation and swelling, a slight discoloration at the back of this throat. She clicked the pen off and put it back on the table.

"Without better equipment to actually run tests, I'd have to guess. Best case, mild strep throat. Worst case, vocal cord paralysis (VCP) or aphasia. VCP can be caused byneck or chest injury, stroke, viral infections, or a neurological conditions. All of these are a possibility. Treatment includes surgery or therapy. I've never done vocal surgery before so that's out of the ballpark unless we can get you to a hospital. Now if it was a stroke, aphasia could be the problem, too."

The wild man put his hand back on her thigh. He did it slowly as to not startle her. ' _Can u fix me'_

"Maybe, with time and therapy. But if it's not something physical, then it's mental. Psychological. Your brain isn't letting you speak."

' _Why'_

"Because of what you've been through," she said softly. "Sometimes our brains have a funny way of protecting us."

' _Memory loss'_

"Sometimes. If the trauma is severe enough. Some people don't remember what happened to them, only the before and after. Other, they only remember what happened. Nothing else."

She titled her head to the side, her hair spilling over her shoulder. She had one arm supporting her on the bed, the other still at the base of his throat. She was begging to see the wild man in her bed differently. He was no longer a wounded animal hell bent on killing her, but a broken man. A victim. With no way to communicate, and possibly no memory of who he is. Only remembering a reality of horrors and agony.

Knowing this, it made sense that he kept attacking her. He must have thought she was one of the men that had done this to him. PTSD developed and kicked in, making him relive his hell over and over again. She had simply become a part of it.

"Can you remember?" He shook his head. "Nothing?"

' _Torture' 'Men'_ he wrote on her thigh, slowly and one on top of the other. _'Name'_

"Name?" Her eyes lit up. This was progress. If he knew his name that was one step further in humanizing him, bringing him back to reality and out of his head. His name gave him something to cling to. "Yours?"

He nodded. _'Grant'_

"Grant…" Katherine smiled, her eyes radiating caution and kindness. "It's nice to finally meet you."


	13. Chapter 13

For the next week or so, the two fell into a routine. The wild man…. _Grant_ ….was recovering well, wounds closing, scabbing over to leave permanent scars. She'd wash them, clean them, and reapply antibiotics and bandages. His need for transfusions was over, he could hold his own supply and regulate it. His voice was another matter. She'd tried hot compresses, sewing one together out of a scarf and rice. She's tried massaging and speech therapy.

The only thing working for them was the whiteboard she dug out of her truck.

Grant laid his head against his palms, eyes closed. Katherine tentatively massaged the muscles of his throat and around his neck, making her way up to the base of his skull. I was gentle with the injuries that were still fresh. He was no longer wearing a bandage on the side of his throat. There was nothing to keep her hands off of is skin like before. His eyes were still closed but there was a twist to his lips she couldn't read.

"What are you thinking?" She blurted out before she could stop herself. She bit her lip.

Grant's dark eyes slid open. An uninvited flood of warmth came to her. His eyes dropped to her lips. He raised his hand to cup her cheek, to feather his thumb along her jawline; his fingertips traveled up to her chin to find her full lower lip.

"Wild man…" she softly warned.

Katherine's heart began to beat faster, heat rising into her cheeks and rushed low, pooling into a distant ache. One she hadn't felt since James was around. She didn't like that she was feeling it now…with him.

His hand slid around to the nape of her neck. Slowly, he forced her head down toward him.

"Grant," Katherine whispered rebelliously, closing her eyes, not wanting to want him yet somehow…she felt _something_.

And then his mouth touched hers. Feather light, a skimming brush Katherine felt right down to her toes. His teeth scraped her lower lip, teasing, tempting, enticing. Fire raced through them. Her stomach muscles clenched.

His teeth tugged at her lip, tempting her to open her mouth; his tongue followed with a soothing caress. Katherine gasped as much at the tender teasing as at the feel of his lips on hers. He took advantage immediately, fastening his mouth to hers, his tongue exploring every inch of her.

A storm was brewing. Inside the hobbled cottage. Between the two of them. Electricity crackled as chemistry built. Feeling; (im)pure and simple. There was nothing in the world save his mouth claiming hers, plunging her into another previously unknown world. She felt the ground shift beneath her, Heaven and Earth were moving; all Katherine could do to keep from falling into Hell was clutch Grant's shoulders.

He was sweeping aside every resistance, demanding her response and taking her response, all hunger and desire. He would take possession of her mind if he could. Possession. He would make her his, only his, _always_ his.

She doesn't want that.

Katherine shoved at his broad shoulders, then tumbled back onto the floor. She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. They glared at one another, until amusement crept into his eyes, momentarily melting the ice away.

"Not what I had in mind when I asked you what you thought…."

Sitting on the floor, struggling desperately to get her breathing under control, to throw ice water on the raging fire in her blood, Katherine was afraid he wasn't going to take her seriously.

"This…" she waved her hand between them, searching for the words. "This sort if thing….is not right. I am the one in charge, wild man, not you. I give the orders, not you. I make the moves, not you. Pull something like that again," she glowered at him, "I open you back up and chuck you to the wolves. Understand?"

He watched her with his unnervingly steady gaze. She took that as an agreement, a tentative one at that. Katherine inhaled, wrinkled her nose. He was supposed to be half-dead. No one half-dead should be able to kiss like that…make her feel like that. It was shocking to her the affect he was beginning to have.

There was a sudden glint in his eyes, somewhere between a flame dancing and amusement. Her cheeks flushed as she glared at him.

"Shut up," she said rudely. She had to find a way to get control back, if she even had it at all. She took a deep, calming breath. "You smell. You could use a bath and a good hair trim."

She stood up. He was healthy enough to shower, but he still required help getting up off the bed and into the next room. She walked over to him, but paused a few feet away, out of the reach of his hands.

"Are you going to try that again?" He stared at her a moment, gaze unwavering, before his eyes softened and he shook his head.

She sat on the edge of the bed and pulled back the covers to check his bandages. She found an old pair of James's sweat pants so he would no longer be naked; a shirt would be too much of a hassle for both of them.

"How's your voice?"

She reached up and prodded his throat with gentle fingers. Still slightly swollen; however, she thought the damage was more physiological than physical. She felt his mouth open. She looked up at him. He was trying to form words, speak, but he couldn't. His eyes spoke for him – impatient, frustrated at his own inability.

Fearing his anger would grow and he'd strike at her, she needed to calm him. Her fingers found his forehead, calming, soothing.

"Don't force yourself, Grant." She spoke his name softly. "Give it time. Give your _body_ time."

His own fingers went up to his temples and tapped twice.

"Mind? Memory?" Katherine asked, guessing at what he was saying. He nodded. "That will come back, too, with time. You _will_ be able to remember."

Rage welled up his eyes, red flames glowing in the black depths. Katherine's heart nearly stopped, and she jerked backwards to put distance between them. He moved faster, his arm a blur. His fingers encircled her wrist, preventing escape. His grip was unbreakable – his raw strength returning to him – yet he was not hurting her at all.

With an effort, he pushed down his anger. He hadn't wanted to alarm her. His thumb feathered lightly over the inside of her wrist, making him all too aware of her pulse racing frantically. Very gently he tugged until she was forced back to his side.

"This has to stop," she told him sternly, her cool blue eyes smoldering dangerously. Every moment he was awake he became more tyrannical, more possessive.

Using the ASL Katherine was teaching him, he apologized. His black gaze slid over her calmly. His fingers tightened around her wrist, tugged until she relaxed against him. She pulled away from him and he let her, releasing her wrist reluctantly. He instead traced his fingertips along her high cheekbone. He thumbed over the scar Agent Daniel Quick had given her at the general store fire. She brushed his hand away from her face and edged away out of his reach. Again, he let her.

"Why do you keep doing that?" She asked him. "I tell you no, I tell you to stop, and you don't. You just pull me closer. Why is that?"

' _I don't know'_ , he signed in response.

Katherine was worried his mind was playing tricks on him, weaving fantasies for him. There were so many things both of them didn't understand. Grant was half-mad, his mind shattered, his memories coming to him in tiny pieces, yet maybe he was more stable than she was. It was a scary thought.

"I'm going to help you up and into the bathroom. Shower and do what you need, and I'll fix you dinner."

As she spoke, she walked to the bed. If she focused on what she needed to do, and not look into his eyes, then they should be good. Grant didn't give her any 'trouble' this time. She helped him sit up, her arms around his waist and shoulders; Grant gripped the bed rail with one hand and put his arm around Katherine's shoulder with the other. Together, they pulled Grant off the bed and got him standing.

Katherine kept the pace slow as they walked to the bathroom. Inside, she leaned Grant against the wall while she pulled out a towel, washcloth, and soap. Everything else he would be able to reach with no problem.

"Bang on the wall if you need me," she said as she left him, pulling the door shut behind her.

Dinner was a casual affair, nothing special – rice, beans, oranges, fish. She made a mental note to herself to head into town soon to restock on supplies. Grant had used up all of her blood coolers; that would have been a problem, but he no longer needed it and she wasn't leaving the cottage to see patients. So food and the little necessities were all she needed.

She had Grant's plate fixed and waiting on the small stand by the bed when the door to the bathroom opened. Barefoot and bare-chested, he leaned against the doorframe unsteadily, the drawstrings to his lounge pants undone causing the pants to ride low on his hips. He had done the best he could towel drying his damaged chest, but not very well. He was still damp, and water dripping from his shaggy black hair wasn't helping.

Katherine walked over to him, placing his arm around her shoulder and gently wrapping hers around his waist. They walked slowly back to the bed. With one hand gripping her shoulder, the other the bedrail, she helped Grant lower himself onto the bed.

"Stay sitting up," she told him.

He did as she said while she retrieved his towel from the bathroom. She knelt down in front of him. She patted him dry as gently as she could, already seeing the amount of pain he was in from moving around and hot water cascading over his wounds. He closed his eyes to keep the pain in check. His hair was easier. She put the towel over the top of his head, leaving his face exposed – she didn't want him freaking out on her. She massaged his scalp as she dried his hair. After a couple minutes, she was done.

"You really do need a haircut," she muttered to herself, tossing the towel to the bottom of the bed. Grant's eyes opened and looked at her curiously, unsure of what she said. She shook her head. "Nothing."

Katherine put her hands underneath Grant's arms and helped him sit back against the headboard of the bed. It was painful, but over quickly. She placed the plate on the bed beside him and moved his glass of water closer to him, an orange bendy straw in it.

"You eat while I shower and change my clothes."

She grabbed the damp towel from the bottom of the bed and stalked into the bathroom. She stripped out of her t-shirt, blue jeans, and underwear. She'd been wearing the same outfit for the past week. To keep travel light, and medical supplies a priority, she only had two pairs of jeans, three shirts, two pair of underwear, and a single jacket. She wore a single outfit for a week before washing and changing into the next outfit, keep from over washing, shrinking, and wasting valued water. She'd wash their clothes in the tub tomorrow, hand them to dry outside on the line if the sun was out.

She wanted to stay in the warm shower for eternity, but the water grew cold after ten minutes. She shut off the water and wrapped the towel around herself, throwing her soiled clothing into the tub.

She took her time brushing her hair. It was getting longer, now reaching to the middle of her shoulder blades. She braided it with deft fingers before walking back into the main room, the towel securely wrapped around her.

Grant was laying back against the headboard, the empty plate of food and glass on the small table beside the bed. She enjoyed it when he slept – no pain contorting his face, peace. She rooted around in her duffle bag by the floor of the bed for her spare set of clothes – jeans, grey shirt, old and bland underwear and bra.

She retreated back into the bathroom to change. He looked to be asleep, but Katherine still did not want Grant to wake up to the sight of her naked body in front of him…..although that would be a site indeed. But would that be so bad? The thought sent heat curling through her body.

Katherine went very still. Her teeth tugged worriedly at her lower lip. It shocked her that she could think of, or enjoy, such an idea. Almost accept that idea. She found herself trembling. Extending her hands out in front of her, she watched with annoyance as they shook.

What was happening to her? She knew the man lying in her bed to be dangerous, violent, yet a part of her….enjoyed that. Was attracted to that. _Wanted_ that. _Needed_ that.

 _What was happening to me_ , the thought streaked across her mind.

She bit harder on her lower lip. She needed to put distance between them. Even without the ability to speak, his eyes, his actions, his personality was extremely overpowering. Something deep within her, something wild like him, was calling out to him. The chemistry between them –

"Fuck chemistry," she muttered to herself. She threw open the bathroom door and bolted to the cabin's door.


End file.
